I know that Baron Corbin is a good wrestler. You know that Baron Corbin is a good wrestler. I don’t think the WWE knows that Baron Corbin is a good wrestler. Corbin made his debut in NXT about 10 years ago, and since then he hasn’t made an impact in the WWE. He won the Andre the Giant Battle Royal (which means nothing now), he was a United States Champion (I don’t recall any big moments from it), he won the Money in the Bank Briefcase (lost it due to punishment) and won the King of the Ring (which means nothing).
You have a guy of Corbin’s size, very athletic, unique look, fun move set, can portray a bunch of different personalities and you not only leave him on the bench, but do everything in your power to make him look like a joke every time he’s in the ring.
Lone Wolf gimmick was good. Seeing Corbin lose all his money and then become rich was entertaining, but it didn’t lead to any World Titles. It didn’t lead to any big factions. He teamed with Madcap Moss, but that ended pretty quickly.
If Corbin does get released or decides to not accept a new deal, I’d like to see him join Impact Wrestling. There he can battle guys like Joe Doering, Black Taurus and most importantly Moose.
Whatever happens with the rest of Corbin’s career, I just hope he’s utilized properly. I think he can do great things in wrestling, but I don’t want to see him reduced to a jobber and a stepping stone for future world champions.
Netflix has no right messing with my soul like this. The clip they show look like a silly show about a child who lives alone in an apartment complex who does random shenanigans. Seems like a fun show to watch where you can turn your brain off and relax. Then episode 3 comes around and you find out that Kotaro’s mother is dead, her life insurance is how he affords the apartment, but he’s not told she’s dead and its from a generous donor, and he has a restraining order against his abusive father. 0-100 very fast. Thank God its only 10 episodes and doesn’t look like its being renewed for a second season.
The rest of the show is sadly an attack on the soul. You find out Kotaro spent a lot of time homeless and was eating tissues and leaves to survive. Kotaro does help his neighbors out with their problems.
Karino, an artist, Kotaro helps learn deadlines and responsibilities. Tamaru, he helps repair the relationship with his son. And Akitomo, he helps her run away from her abusive boyfriend. The show’s goal is to show people what really matters in life. Love and family.
Kotaro and Karino have a good father and son relationship. Karino becomes one of the best father figures in anime I’ve ever seen and in the final episode, hides a terrible secret from Kotaro. That his mom is dead. He gives Kotaro hope that they might one day meet and makes sure he will protect him from his abusive father and his past.
The show is highly rewarding, but incredibly sad. One of those shows where you cry in the end, but it’s a happy cry, because you know Kotaro will never be alone or unhappy again. And maybe that’s why I’m glad the show might not continue. We don’t need 10 seasons of him getting better. We can watch the final credits roll and know its going to work out for him. That he will get the love from his neighbors that blood relative could never give him. And maybe that’s the best kind of ending.
Cameron Grimes has been patiently waiting for his Main Roster call up and I don’t see that happening anytime soon. I don’t recall a moment of Grimes in NXT that screamed he’s going to be a top star. That’s not an attack on his ability, but on the creative team.
Grimes played an old timely coal miner in NXT and then was showered with money when he joined forces with Ted DiBiase, which eventually dissolved into nothing. Or is still going on…like I said Grimes was very forgettable in NXT.
If he does go to the Main Roster after WrestleMania, it should be a total character change. Go full heel, attack a mid-card champion, probably join someone like Bray Wyatt or bring back AOP. Whatever the case, don’t make Grimes have to go out on his own and build himself up. Put him in a faction, take the pressure off him, build on some big matches and then off to the singles division starting with a Money in the Bank match or a multi-man match. Not original, but it’s effective.
Where do you see Grimes going on the Main Roster and who would he fight first?
Congratulations to Buddy Matthews for winning the AEW…..TNT…..FTW…..ROH…..the MCW World Heavyweight Championship. Yes, you read that right folks. Buddy Matthews, one of the most talented wrestlers on the planet, just won the MCW Championship…. yikes.
I remember a time, not too long ago, when Matthews was in the WWE destroying everyone in the Cruiserweight Division and then went to the main roster, teamed with Seth Rollins and was released. THEN, showed up in AEW and teamed with Malakai Black and Brody King to do essentially nothing. Am I crazy for thinking Matthews is a superstar talent? Is it possible that these big named companies are just dropping the ball on him?
I’d like to read a quote from Matthews after winning the championship when he was asked when he will be returning.
“It’s all about the travel – it’s how many times I want to jump on a plane and travel 30 hours. To see my family is everything, and my WWE schedule was very hectic. Not that this one isn’t, but AEW – I’m very fortunate to work for a company that allows me to go and see my family. Pop over, and help these guys. It’s really cool to come and do that”
Translation:
Thank you AEW for giving me a contract where I have to wrestle 17 times a year and get to go to the indies and across the world to put together an audition tape for the WWE, Impact Wrestling and NJPW. If Tony Khan can’t find a way to make Buddy Matthews a relevant star in AEW, then he doesn’t deserve to have him.
Mark Briscoe is dealing with real life issues that are more important than wrestling. In no way am I trying to be disrespectful to him and his wrestling ability.
With the tragic passing of his brother Jay Briscoe, Mark Briscoe is on the verge of fading into irrelevancy and unemployment. The Briscoe Brothers were one of the best tag teams in pro wrestling. And the only reason they aren’t a household name is because they had the misfortune to be employed by Ring of Honor.
For those of you that don’t know, mainly because ROH isn’t on any tv channel and the company is terrible at trying to grow the company, The Briscoe Brothers have held the ROH Tag Team Championship for 12 times. Jay has held the ROH World Championship 2 times in his career while Mark has held 0 individual titles.
Jay had IT, Mark does not. Jay can be the top of a company, he could deliver promo, he looked the part, could sell a move, great finisher, there was nothing Jay couldn’t do in the world of wrestling. Mark is good, but not great. Teaming with Jay took a lot of pressure off Mark, which is why they were such a successful tag team.
Mark acts like a wild animal in the ring. He doesn’t wrestle, he fights. Which obviously is his character, but it doesn’t look good in long matches or against top talent. Jay has been at the top of the company. Put on great matches against Adam Cole, Samoa Joe, Jay White, Bandido and a ton of other opponents I watched in preparation for this article.
What happens to Mark now? Where does he fit in on AEW? As I said before, a successful singles career is not in his future. Are you going to team him up with someone? Who? Now the WWE has given us some interesting tag pairings that looked strange at first, but were successful. Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre, Team Hell No, Ricochet and Aleister Black, The Bar were all fun to watch.
Who does Mark team with? I’ve looked through the AEW roster, I don’t see any pairings that work. The only thing that would work is some big faction, maybe Lance Archer, Mike Bennett, but the more I write this the more ridiculous it sounds.
Mark was his own unique character. Teaming with Jay fit the theme they were trying to portray. There is nobody in wrestling that I think fits with Mark. And now that Jays gone, Mark is lost in the shuffle. Looking at the current AEW roster I found 60 wrestlers more equipped the be the head of the company in some capacity over Mark and none of them seem to mesh with Mark in a tag or faction capacity.
Tony Khan is doing a terrible job at managing his 5 shows. Dynamite, Rampage, Dark, Elevation and ROH are all clumped into one roster and you might go weeks before a feud or one of your favorite wrestler is on tv. For Mark to survive in the company, he needs to be placed at the top of a show and be on a roster of wrestlers that aren’t head and shoulders above him.
Where do you think Mark Briscoe is going in AEW and how would you book him going forward?
I remember seeing Apollo Crews for the first time and thinking “this guy is a mid-carder at best” and since I made that prediction, the WWE hasn’t done anything to elevate or make Crews even remotely relevant. Crew’s more notable feud on the main roster was teaming with Kalisto and the going against Dolph Ziggler in a handicapped match. Nothing else comes to mind when I think of Crews. Then came his gimmick change where he became African and teamed with Commander Azeez, which was one of the worst character changes to both men’s careers.
Now Crews is on NXT. He is putting together a string of good matches. His last feud with Carmelo Hayes was good, but it didn’t elevate Crews at all. After the match was over, Azeez attacked Crews to start a new feud, which will end……..I don’t care. Both men aren’t doing anything of value now. This feud won’t propel them to title shots or faces of the company. They are B or C- wrestlers, not by their own ability, but by the creative decisions around their characters. Maybe a fresh start in a new company might be the best thing. Zack Ryder took full advantage of his WWE release to become Matt Cardona and now looks ready for the big stage.
What do you think about Apollo Crews and how would you book him going forwards?
I said many times that I have a Love/Hate relationship with Brock Lesnar. I’ve seen many fantastic matches where he fought Kurt Angle, Eddie Guerrero, John Cena, Triple H and others, but there have been a lot of terrible matches with Lesnar as well. the bad matchres consist of German Suplexes followed by an F5 and sprints to the finish of the match. A lot of high spots that get a quick reaction, but nothing long lasting.
This match was a bad Lesnar match in reverse. Slow, painfully slow. To the point where I questioned if Sami Zayn is even a good wrestler anymore. Zayn’s last couple of years in the WWE have been more theatrical than focusing on in ring ability. Yes, he was great in NXT, but I would say the most impressive thing he did on the main roster was his feud with Braun Strowman in 2016, which was 7 years ago. Since then, he has been bottom tier on the roster, lackluster feuds and essentially struggling to hold any type of spotlight. This could very well be the first time watching a wrestler be elevated to potential WrestleMania Championship match based on emotional storytelling and not in ring ability.
All this match did was show that Roman Reigns can command an arena doing very little wrestling. Roman yelled at the crowd, yelled at Zayn’s wife, mouthed off to Zayn’s father, yelled at the crowd again. Every now and then Zayn caught Reigns monologuing and took advantage, but not for long. It felt like watching a retirment match where Zayn’s career was on the line and we saw glimpses of great moments from his past.
Of course the referee went down, bringing in Jimmy Uso to Superkick Zayn until the ref woke up. The Jey Uso hesitation with the chair was interesting, but makes me wonder if this is leading to Jey and Zayn winning the tag titles, which wouldn’t surprise me, but would be an immense letdown of storytelling. Zayn winning the title from Reigns is the only outcome that makes sense. Anything else is a massive letdown.
So what did this match accomplish? That Zayn isn’t at the level that Reigns is? That the fans will chant for you more if your parents had unprotected sex in that city? This feud is over to me. Obviously, we have WrestleMania and an unfinished Jey Uso moment of truth, but this is now Cody Rhode’s time.
Did they bring back Rhodes to win the Royal Rumble and not be the focal point. That we are getting a Triple Threat Match for the titles that again reiterates the fact that Zayn can’t win the big one? So now, they’re sacrificing Rhode’s potential WrestleMania moment for Zayn, when his moment should’ve been in Canada. What a waste.
On par with the rest of the writing of Phase 4 of the MCU, Wakanda Forever wanted to put a callback to a previous, better written, movie and just change it up hoping nobody would notice the absolute ridiculousness of it. The scene I’m talking about is Shuri sparing Namor in the final battle. The setup was similar situation to Civil War, where her brother T’Challa spared Zemo in the end and essentially made peace with him, to an extent.
Now let’s take a look at why T’Challa’s act of mercy made more sense. In Civil War, Zemo came up with the plan to take the Avengers apart because he was upset that they caused the death of his family in Age of Ultron. He planted a bomb during a massive political meeting and framed Bucky for the blast. In the collateral damage, King T’Chaka was killed.
Afterwards, T’Challa sought revenge on Zemo and even paired up with Iron Man and others to ensure that. T’Challa finally got Zemo alone and you can clearly see he’s moments away from killing this man, the only reason he didn’t was because he let Zemo monologue. The movie does a fantastic job of showing T’Challa’s face as Zemo explained how his family died. You can see the man seething for the beginning of it and then he looks down, almost ashamed that he wanted revenge on a man who has lost everything. I consider this scene the greatest acting performance of the late Chadwick Bosman’s career and he was even blurred out for most of it and the rest he stood there silent.
This wasn’t a personal attack on Wakanda, on T’Challa or King T’Chaka. As bluntly put, it was simply collateral damage and Zemo even apologizes to T’Challa for his actions before trying to kill himself. T’Challa didn’t kill Zemo for that simple fact. And it wasn’t worth it. He didn’t kill Zemo, but he didn’t let him escape either, why? Because it was the right thing to do.
Now take Wakanda Forever. When Namor killed Queen Ramonda, it wasn’t by accident. He MEANT to kill her. He stabbed the glass with his spear with her on the other end. It didn’t break and you can see the frustration on his face. Then he throws some water grenades at her and she drowns.
Shuri then wants to get revenger on Namor. She defeats him, puts a spear to his neck and then she steals T’Challa’s line about vengeance has consumed you line and she doesn’t kill him. Shuri spares his life and even offers peace between the two nations in the hopes to working towards a better future.
T’Challa spared Zemo because his father’s death was a product of collateral damage and grief.
Shuri spared Namor after he waged war against the surface world and Wakanda, tried to drown it and tried to kill her mother twice and succeeding.
It is hilarious to think that these two scenes are seen as similar by fans. Shuri sparing Namor wasn’t an act of mercy, but one of stupidity alone. Namor is one of the most powerful beings we’ve seen in the Marvel world, a man whose strength and abilities can even rival those of Ronan, Hela and even Thanos. Namor even tried to kill Shuri by stabbing her through the stomach with his spear. The only reason he walked away was because he thought she was dead and not of mercy. This man does not deserve mercy in the slightest.
Zemo was sitting on a rock when T’Challa approached him, moments away from killing himself. He didn’t attack T’Challa, he didn’t try to escape, he was just sitting there ready to end it all. And it was after T’Challa heard Zemo’s backstory and his apology, that T’Challa deemed it the right thing to do to spare him so he can face justice for his actions.
The writing in Marvel has taken a massive step back and the writers are so desperate to make something good that they are taking previous scenes and butchering them. Some people say its “fan service”, but I see it as laziness. and you could’ve achieved the same result by having Namor “accidentally” be the cause of Queen Ramonda death. Maybe he attacked a plane that crashed into the tower killer her. Maybe he was holding a water grenade and it came loose and into the tower, and still drowning her. Whatever the way, accidentally killing a Queen is a better arch for redemption than trying to flat out kill her.
Marvel, why are you terrible at everything now? Spider-Man 3 did revenge and redemption so much better and that movie came out God knows how long ago. Recycling similar story arches is just lazy and you can’t even do it right anymore.
Everything that Marvel did right died when Tony Stark snapped his fingers. No Way Home was the brightest part of Phase 4, even though it was essentially Member Berries the Movie. Not saying that Marvel can’t find success recycling previous story arches and reinventing old characters, but if you’re not going to bother to put in the work and remember why these characters were great to begin with, then what’s the point.
Wakanda Forever is thankfully the final product of the disastrous Phase 4 of the MCU. I only hope since most upcoming Marvel products are being massively delayed, that the studio has heard our complaints and is trying to reinvent themselves, plan their stories out and do right by the fans who have watched these movies for over a decade.
I feel like its a fiar question. How does a group of survivors make a dent against a fully automated killing force that doesnt get tired and knows no mery?
Inside might be one of the coolest videogames I played in a long time, but I really wished that the game would’ve told me what was going on vs reviewers online
World War Joe 